Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C). Butter the baking dish or the tart pan.

Heat 2 Tbsp of the butter, 3 Tbsp of the sugar and 2 Tbsp of rose water in a large sauté pan over medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the pumpkin cubes and cook for 6-7 minutes until tender. The water should be absorbed and evaporated at that point.

Let the pumpkin cubes cool and set aside.

In a big bowl, mix together the flours, cinnamon, ground cloves and nutmeg, baking powder and soda and the salt.

In a medium bowl, beat together the melted stick (113 g) of butter, the remaining 1/4 cup (50 g) of blonde cane sugar, the remaining 1 Tbsp of rose water, the brown sugar and the eggs until creamy, pale and smooth – about 2 minutes.

Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until combined.

Add the hazelnuts and the pumpkin and stir until combined.

Pour the batter into the baking dish or the tart pan (do not fill the tart pan up to the top) and bake for 35-40 minutes until firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

A few of my French readers have asked me several times to post a little something about New York.

Lack of time and being forgetful contributed to putting New York in a corner… for now. And as you all know, nobody puts New York in a corner.

Spending the Thanksgiving weekend in The City That Never Sleeps is the perfect opportunity to finally satisfy the French obsession for New York.

Ô Chateau’s blog Stuff Parisians Like hit it right on the head when they wrote“Paris is every Parisians’ wife. New York is their mistress”.

The French are fascinated by New York – it’s a fact. In their minds, they think of New York as everything France is not: energetic and cosmopolitan.

They should really know that Americans have the same obsession with Paris. Ah, Paris et la belle France they all say. Quaint and historical come back regularly in conversations.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the Atlantic. I wonder if it would make New Yorkers and Parisians appreciate their cities a bit more knowing the infatuation they generate on each side.

It was a cold Thanksgiving morning.

The table was already set in preparation for the upcoming feast, the sun was slowly rising, the streets were still chilly and shaded.

Yet, the lack of wind and people around made it that much more enjoyable.

The crowds were gathering on the path of the Thanksgiving Parade. Adults and kids – all waiting for their favorite balloons.

And then they came out of nowhere. Giants led by strings through the buildings and the streets.

All eyes looking up at the sky. Kids on dad’s shoulders.

Mum, look it’s Snoopy!

And even if the Parade lasts for 3 hours, it’s an event no one will miss whether watching on TV at home or in the streets of New York City.

Even French tourists gathered around the police barricades to catch a glimpse of this American tradition, which started in the 1920s.

C’est vraiment incroyable, I heard behind me.

Last minute food shopping. Everything should be under control.

Thanksgiving is a big affair. We’ll be cooking all day.

Is the menu finalized?

As always, it will be too much food. But that’s what Thanksgiving is all about. And despite our best efforts to reduce the number of dishes, it will still be too much food.

With 9 people around the table, the cooking fest was about to begin.

So we will start with a Hungarian paprika-spiced cauliflower soup along with a roasted cranberry, grape and swiss chard salad.

And how many cooks are there in the kitchen? 4 cooks!

Who’s taking care of what? And who’s keeping an eye on the turkey?

The turkey is the star of the Thanksgiving table. Everyone has their own tricks to make it juicier, tastier and not dry. Cooking and roasting the Thanksgiving turkey is a national sport in this country.

Here’s what we ended up with:

Roasted and brined heritage turkey

Rabbit with gremolata and polenta

Roasted hen of the woods mushrooms

Cornbread stuffing with venison sausage and squash

Wild rice stuffing with cranberries, apples and walnuts

Lobster mashed potatoes

Caramelized Brussels sprouts with pancetta and sun-dried tomatoes

Golden beet and caramelized onion galette

Roasted sweet potatoes

Green beans almondine

Moroccan-spiced spaghetti squash

Cranberry-citrus compote

Still hungry? Thanksgiving is also known for its desserts!

Mixed berry pie

Bourbon pecan pie

Rustic Italian nut tart

Bacon-bourbon brownies with pecans

Pumpkin pie

Mincemeat pie – which I learned does not contain any meat in it!

And because I am that much of a gourmand, I had to take a cooking break at some point to enjoy a piece of bacon brownie and get away from the kitchen ebullience.

Excesses without moderation – très Américain, I shall say.

New York was only waiting for us to come out the next day to show us its best assets with a warm, sunny and colorful weather.

Walking a bit on the High Line on the way to the Chelsea Market brings a certain pastoral charm to one’s surroundings.

The High Line is a pedestrian walkway along former elevated freight rail tracks.

A place where grass and nature can run wild. A green path through Chelsea, which begins in the Meatpacking District.

Old slaughterhouses and packing plants. Industrial vibe and red bricks.

There is always an abandoned hidden corner or alley to discover. The promise of a new place to venture in with the hopes to find a gem.

Maybe an unknown restaurant patio to rest when feeling peckish.

Or forgotten posters of John Lennon, Louis Armstrong and Madonna tucked between a loading dock and a boarded up nightclub.

An adventure on its own.

We ended up in Hell’s Kitchen and its Sunday’s flea market where everything and anything can be bought.

With the Lincoln Tunnel as a backdrop, the flea market is the most famous urban outdoor market in the city.

Old armchairs, fake furs, jewels and leather pants – the market has them all for you to bargain-hunt.

Feeling courageous and needing to digest a bit more, our walk took us to Central Park – the lungs of the city.

We observed birds on a bench, while others boated around the Lake.

We said hi to the carriage horses and played in the fall leaves.

It was 66 degrees – mais oui, 19! – and a perfect reason to lay on the Great Lawn and walk by the Reservoir.

New York is like Paris. You can’t see it all at once and you can’t talk about it in one single post.

There will always be some new streets, neighborhoods and areas to discover. It’s endless.

And when you think you’ve seen it all, it will surprise you once more.

The photo opportunities seem to wait for you at each street corner.

Scenes of life to capture as they unfold and happen in front of you.

A slice of urban heaven for those who enjoy the bustling and effervescence of the city.

A place where you can eat anything. And is there anything you cannot find in New York?

A quick movement, a split second – everything around already changed.

A traffic light turning green, a smoking sewer drain, a honking horn and a sea of pedestrians pushing their way through.

Walking home trough the quiet and private Gramercy Park via the Christmas Market of Union Square, the city had started to switch from celebrating Thanksgiving to focusing on the next Holidays to come.

And as tradition wants it, the Christmas trees were put up the day after Thanksgiving. Homes and stores newly decorated with green, red and crystal clear white lights.

New York forever changing and reinventing itself, announcing a new season to come and celebrate.

I’ve been waiting for the contest to be over and for FriendsEat to follow-up with me after the fact so I could include a little blurb in a brand new post. And here it is!

As many of you saw from the banner on the blog (top right) when reading the last three posts, your votes and participation landed me in the Top 10 – at #4! This was truly a great and wonderful surprise and I need to thank all of you who took the time to click on the FriendsEat link and vote. Merci, merci, merci!

Following the contest, FriendsEat decided to interview all bloggers from the Top 10. Interesting exercise I must say. But fun nonetheless.

So without further ado, the Frenchie and the Yankee interview is now available online and you can read all of it by clicking here.

Thank you again to Blanca for interviewing me and her wonderful team at FriendsEat.

I would be lying if I told you that Thanksgiving wasn’t my favorite Holiday.

This probably comes as quite a surprise since I obviously wasn’t raised celebrating Thanksgiving in France and ended up adopting this Holiday for the first time back in 1999 when I came to the U.S.

And yet, it’s my favorite one.

The French tend to be a little fuzzy about what Thanksgiving really is and means. When they hear the word Thanksgiving, the only thing that comes to their mind is manger and dinde.

And yes, eating and turkey pretty much sums it up!

Thanksgiving is really the National Stomach Stretching Prep Week before the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations roll right around the corner in December.

No need to explain in great details what the story behind Thanksgiving is – Wikipedia does a wonderful job for that in French.

However, what is worth mentioning here is why as a foreigner I adopted Thanksgiving and made it part of my very own tradition.

I was recently advised to tour the Mount Auburn Cemetery (thank you Michael H.!) to catch wonderful views of Boston and admire the colorful foliage.

A long walk on a lazy sunny and warm Saturday morning was the perfect moment to photograph the joyous picturesque trees around and discuss the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend plans.

One of the thing I really appreciate about Thanksgiving is that it’s a Holiday you can count on. You can never count on Christmas especially when it’s on a Sunday! A total let down!

Thanksgiving is always on the 4th Thursday in November. And I bet that Thursday must feel really lucky to be #4!

And with Friday wrapped together with Thursday as a one-package deal and Wednesday usually requested off from work, the Holiday weekend seems endless.

The cemetery offered such ranges of colors that a painter’s pallet would have been too small to recreate those combinations.

Yellow, brown, green, red, orange. Bright and lit. Dark and shadowed.

Like a linguistic declension, these colors paired themselves by groups following similar and drastically different patterns and changes.

And food is also color. Nuances in tones, combinations and subtleties.

Hints of bright colors among white plates.

The thrilling part about Thanksgiving is the tints of colorful food on the table.

Thanksgiving is meant to bring people together and gather around a table.

It’s a family event. And when you don’t have any family nearby, it becomes a dinner with friends.

Will it surprise anyone to know that during the week of Thanksgiving I usually attend 2 or 3 Thanksgiving dinners?

A friends’ Thanksgiving get-together is always in the air before the real Thursday dinner.

A long table, 12 to 15 guests, many dishes, glassware, chairs, laughs all mingling and waiting for the one and only turkey to magically appear from the oven.

And then there’s always a leftover party. And you know what? Leftovers are the best part about Thanksgiving.

Colors, friends, turkey, eating, being thankful for what you have – it doesn’t get any better than that.

But what I enjoy the most about Thanksgiving is bringing a new twist to an old tradition.

For some reason, most people complain about having to eat the same turkey every year, with the same cranberry sauce recipe, and the boring mashed potatoes with the bland boiled squash.

The exciting part for me is to plan, test and invent new flavor and color combinations to bring cheers to the table and awaken the palate.

Maybe this post will give you new ideas! I hope!

Being different in a sea of old too-familiar family recipes and breaking away from them.

Will my turkey be lavender-scented this year with French grey sea salt, lavender and herbes de Provence?

Or will it slowly and nicely roast with a home-made sage and pancetta butter inserted under the crispy skin?

Cranberry sauce, of course.

But add oranges, lemon, lemon zest and ginger to spice it up and make a citrusy cranberry compote.

Stuffing, definitely.

Remove the bread and turn it into a wild rice stuffing with small chunks of Granny Smith apples, dried cranberries, spicy pork sausage and walnuts.

Spaghetti squash, absolument!

It is my favorite thing to prepare. I had never seen one until I came to the U.S. and what a treat to be able to create “spaghetti” from a squash with a fork.